POLL | How many cows did you NOT eat this year?

It feels like a bad joke that an overproduction of cow flatulence could cause irreversible harm to the environment, but scientists say that it’s true [1].

I’ve given up burgers for food safety reasons. And I usually “only” eat red meat two or three times a month.

Unfortunately, American consumption of meat is at an all-time high.

According to data published by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), consumers are expected to eat 222.2 pounds (100.8 kilo) of red meat and poultry this year, up from 216.9 pounds per person in 2017. That will surpass the previous record of 221.9 pounds per person, set in 2004. [2]

I guess the better poll question to ask is

How many vegetarian meals do you eat in a typical week?

For me, breakfasts are 7/7. Lunches are 0/7. And suppers are usually 3/7.

imho, if we were to consider it in certain ways, biological balance of our planet is fubar beyond one country's ability to repair it. Cows are cute and prime boneless steak tastes great and is nourishing. As long as there are no abuses. I only buy from local butcher, truly USDA grade grass fed beef, and like you, can count on one hand's fingers the steaks in a month. Burgers are very rare occurrence for me, and only if best quality.

But no offense, the cow's farts aspect of climate change has me rolling on the floor laughing...

I just tried soy milk - although I have to admit I went for the vanilla-flavored variant instead of the "pure" stuff. It's not bad, definitely something I can get used to for my daily bowl of breakfast muesli.

I will try the others as well and am especially looking forward to the almond one, although I assume that its environmental impact will be somewhat higher than the others. Generally speaking, I'm not sure if the data provided in the chart is even valid world-wide (and especially here in Germany), considering that most of the top ten soy-exporting countries are located in the Americas.

Great, Factotum! I’ve experimented with various plant milks and although I like almonds, almond milk seems to have a slight bitter aftertaste fo me.

My intuition says you’re probably right about almond milk having a larger environmental impact, but I don’t know for sure. I live in California where water is tight and there have been some articles about how much water it takes to grow almonds. Also, soy is a bean and I have a vague notion they might return nitrogen to the soil like other beans. Maybe @CadeJohnson knows?

I don’t mind them adding vanilla. In America, we love sweet things, so a lot of them have added sugar. We’re fortunate to have a local grocery chain that sells an unsweetened version and I’m fortunate enough to like it that way, so this is what I settled on:

soybeans DO fix nitrogen, converting atmospheric nitrogen to a form the plant can use for growth. They don't generally fix enough nitrogen to meet all the plant's needs, so soybeans use some soil nitrogen as well, but commercial soybean crops are often not fertilized with ammonia. That saves eventual emission of nitrous oxide - a potent greenhouse gas.

Related: there is a form of iron in soybean roots that is also in meat: heme iron. Impossible Foods extracts it to make their plant-based burgers have that slight metallic taste that burgers from cows have, and the red color.

So I have a vague notion that maybe my soy milk consumption helps impossible too. There are a lot of editorials suggesting Impossible and Beyond may become two of the most important companies in the world for the environment.

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